It all started as a joke, really. All of it.
Rosie downloaded Tinder a few weeks ago to see what all the fuss was about. She got chatting with a really nice guy, and of course, she received quite a number of, erm, questionable greetings and/or one-liners. And a date for Saturday.
I was intrigued. I was curious. And more importantly, I was procrastinating.
So I downloaded Tinder too.
I did it for the comic relief and the procrastination. I expected nothing from it apart from some lewd messages that Rosie and I could share a laugh over while we were busy not working on things we should be working on.
I got some conversations going, mostly small talk. People asking me about fencing and metal. And one very to-the-point message. One thing led to another and I started chatting with Adam. His description simply said he was a professional explorer, author, and archaeologist. Which is pretty much the coolest thing ever. It sounded like a childhood dream come true, and so I told him that.
We eventually got talking, and turns out he's at Mac doing his PhD. I asked him what it was on, and he offered to talk over coffee. To which I agreed.
I was a bit apprehensive at first. This was, after all, Tinder. A sketchy-ass app that I still don't trust. But I did download it to procrastinate, and what better way to procrastinate than hang around Starbucks? Besides, Adam's profile seemed pretty extraordinary and (from what I could tell from the photos), he seemed like a cool person.
Wednesday night rolled around and I decided to see if I could find Adam anywhere online. I Googled something like "Adam McMaster PhD Aboriginals", which was pretty much the only things I knew about him. And wow, did I get a lot of results. There was some National Post article that I didn't read, two McMaster websites, and his personal website. Which I clicked. I didn't read very far into it because I wanted Adam to tell me these things himself, and also because I didn't want to creep too hard. But the few seconds I did glimpse of the website had me awestruck. Not only was Adam legit, he was super legit. Like, met-the-Governor-General legit and Sponsored by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
The apprehension was gone and replaced by excitement and anticipation. The next day, I started feeling a bit apprehensive again. Butterflies, I guess. The usual fears of not meeting expectations, etc etc. But when we finally met and said hello, I could only think of how cool he was. And that thought predominated throughout our almost 2-hour conversation. I mean, it was mostly me talking (and I felt kind of bad -- I'm not that great at segueing into questions without sounding super all-in-your-face), but he is a great listener. My only fear at that point was I sounded like so much of a child. 7 year age difference hello.
Anyway. Good stuff.
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PS. I saw two bunnies on my way home. They were hopping about by the bushes on the side of IAHS. THEY. ARE. SO. CUTE. I tried to take a photo but my phone is about as good a camera as a tin can is.
